It Should've Been Me
by Chloes-Cheese
Summary: "I was staring at them but I didn't care. I just couldn't get the stupid thought out of my head. I couldn't look away." An angsty oneshot of what was going through Mary Margaret's mind in Snow Falls. John Doe/Mary Margaret Blanchard. spoilers for 1.03.


**Disclaimer: No matter how much I would like to marry Josh Dallas, nothing in this story is mine but the thoughts themselves.**

**Author's Note: for the record, I never intended to write this but I couldn't get this out of my head so I had to type it up and here we are.**

**I love these two together and can't wait for them to get back together and to see how things go next week. This is just my take on what was going through Mary's head at the end.**

**SPOILERS: In case you didn't read the description, this story is major spoilers for episode 3 Snow Falls and is a sort of internal monologue and look at what Mary was thinking throughout the episode.**

**Enjoy!**

I had no reason to stay. The police had gotten our statements, Dr. Whale had confirmed that John Doe, or David as it were, would be fine, and Henry and Emma had both left too. I had no reason to remain standing in the hospital ward staring at the man whose life I had saved not half an hour ago.

But I was.

I just couldn't leave.

I wanted to. The rational part of my brain kept telling me that everything was taken care of and that I should be happy to not only have saved David's life but reunited him with his wife too. But I wasn't.

I couldn't explain why but I felt drawn to the man who'd been in a coma for years. I should've left and gone back home; back to grading papers and a dinner all by myself, but there I stood like a statue, just staring as if transfixed.

I typically prided myself on being a very practical person. After so many failed dates and being the age I was without ever having a long relationship I had begun to become accustomed to the idea that true love did not exist and that I would always be alone. Then suddenly, I'd allowed myself to hope.

When Emma first told me Henry's theory about me being Snow White and John Doe being Prince Charming, I naturally dismissed it as part of his fairy tale coping mechanism. I didn't think there was a slightest chance that it was true.

Then I read to David and the story sounded so wonderful and enthralling that I started to wish that it was. Everything would have been so much easier then. Wouldn't life be simpler if I was some sort of fairy tale princess and the reason that I'd never found the right guy was because he was in a coma? As I started to read, the childlike part of me started imagining that maybe, just maybe, Henry was right and the man lying beside me was my soul mate.

Then he grabbed my hand. A man who'd been unconscious for years suddenly showed brain activity just because I read to him. Maybe we were meant for each other and all he needed was to hear my voice telling him the story that was meant to be ours to come back. Of course the doctor told me I imagined the entire thing and my rational side chimed in that this was the real world without fairy tale endings, but the child in me had been awakened. I'd had hope like I had never allowed before. Of course I could not admit that out loud because it was just too preposterous a thing to admit that it might be true.

Before I could read more he did the remarkable and woke up and walked out. There was no way it was a coincidence that he just happened to wake up and walk out the very night I read the story to him. Of course when Henry was saying the very same things that my inner-believer was shouting at me, I had to deny it. To say what I'd begun to hope was true was just more than I could do.

I'd never tell, but the moment I saw John Doe laying the river, my heart jumped and started beating faster than it ever had. I'd found him, this guy who could quite possibly be the end of a life alone, and I'd found him. My second thought was that of fear. If he was dead, I knew neither I nor my inner-believer could go on. After all of my hoping and our searching for him he just couldn't be dead.

He had a pulse but it was so weak that I almost lost all hope right then and there. Doing the only thing I could, I gave him CPR, silently wishing on every star in the sky that this man, this strange source of hope and change would live.

"Come back to me." I had whispered, unwilling to accept that this was the end of this adventure and of his story.

Someone, somewhere must have listened as the water came spurting out of his lungs, reviving him. And in that moment, he looked at me with these beautiful blue eyes as if he were looking right into my soul, as if it were me and him alone in the world and that I was his lifeline that had pulled him ashore.

"You saved me." He had said as if he were Prince Charming in the story I had read him. And I believed. Just then, with the way he was looking at me and with him basically coming back to life, I thought that we really were Snow White and Prince Charming and that we might actually get to ride off into the sunset and that things might actually work out for the first time in my whole life.

Then the ambulance arrived and there was a flurry of paramedics and police officers between us as they rushed him back to the hospital. Emma, Henry, Sheriff Graham and I followed as quickly as we could. I was overcome with the insane desire to just stare into his eyes like maybe I could find all of the answers in them.

But when Katherine came in and called his name, I felt at though my heart had fallen right out of my chest and down, down far below from how devastated I felt. I supposed I should've seen it coming. Perfect and handsome men like him didn't stay single forever. I just didn't want to believe it.

And now here we were: him with his wife and me with my heartbreak. I couldn't help it. It was stupid and I should never have let myself hope what I had hoped but seeing him with someone else just shattered my heart. How? How could we have come that close? How could we have had such a strong connection spring up between us with the way he looked into my eyes after I saved him have happened if he was married? The doctor said he didn't remember anything but that didn't change it. He had his wife who loved him and all I was was the closest person who knew CPR when he needed it.

I knew this. My mind in fact kept screaming this at me. But my heart…my heart didn't listen. It just kept whispering over and over and over again like rain on shattered glass: _It__should__'__ve__been__me.__It__should__'__ve__been__me.__It__should__'__ve__been__me.__It__should__'__ve__been__me._

I was staring at them but I didn't care. I just couldn't get the stupid thought out of my head. I couldn't look away. How could I have been gullible enough to think that life would be that simple? How could I have let myself do this again? I know I always told my students that hope was very important and extremely powerful and I knew that but, as in the past, my hope only served lift me higher for each fall I took.

_It should've been me._

Trying to pluck up the self-respect to leave and go home to my empty apartment, all thoughts of leaving ran from my brain when the Katherine woman hugged David and I saw him hug her back. I just wanted to melt, to fall apart and just cry from the unreasonable aching in my heart at seeing him with someone else.

_It__should__'__ve__been__me._ My explicable heartbreak called out as I fought the urge to cry.

Almost as if he heard my inner pain, David suddenly looked at me and I barely dug up the smallest of smiles as I tried to hide how disappointed and sad the sight made me.

But then he looked at me, and I mean really looked at me, as if he had an inner hope to rival mine; as if he too had felt something by the river where he came back to me. And the inner-child in me just believed, one more time for just a moment, that he was mine and that we were meant for each other and that we'd make it through. I found myself fiddling with the ring on my middle finger on my right hand that I'd had forever and I hoped. But then he looked away and a great swell of disappointment rose so high as reality crashed down around me and I couldn't stand there anymore. I couldn't look at what I'd foolishly thought might be mine for one more minute.

I had to leave. Not thinking twice, I turned away, stupid and unexplainable tears welling in my eyes as I came to grips with the fact that my life was unspectacular and lonely and that there would be no fairy tale ending for me from a handsome stranger I didn't know.

I just couldn't get the way he looked at me through the glass out of my head as my heart kept echoing, "It should've been me."

**Author's Note: Well there we have it. Not happy but I couldn't help but write this. That moment at the end was so heartbreaking, I just couldn't get this out of my head so I had to type it up and here we are.**

**Hope you all liked it. I might be inspired for more drabbles as the show goes on, who knows?**

**Feedback is love. Please let me know what you thought!**


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